“Repeat any of what?” said the Reverend.

“There you go.” And with that, Emerson closed the door and ran back to his car.

I stared at the Reverend for a moment before finally saying, “What the hell was that?”

“That, Samuel, was a deformed human being whose life was probably an unbroken string of lonely miseries that ended on the muddy, freezing banks of this river with no friend near to hold their hand or mark the moment of their passing—that’s who that was.”

I nodded my head and apologized.

“Looked like something out of Jason and the Argonauts, you ask me,” said Linus.

The Reverend shot him a look that could have frozen fire. “Nobody asked you. And I’ll thank you to show a little respect for someone who wasn’t lucky enough to have us find him first!”

Linus blanched at the Reverend’s sudden anger. “I…I didn’t mean anything by it, I’m sorry.”

The Reverend glared at him for a moment longer, then exhaled, his shoulders slumping and the anger vanishing from his face. “I’m sorry, too, Linus.” He reached out and grabbed the other man’s hand. “I didn’t mean to raise my voice like that. Forgive me?”

“I will if I can have another sandwich.”

“Done.”

Linus tore into his ham-and-cheese and I pulled out, turned the van around, and headed for the second pickup point.

None of us mentioned the photographs; not then, not later, not again.

If you live here, you accept the weird shit—even if it’s with a capital ‘W’—or you try to get out.

Good luck with that last option.

4

We dropped Linus off at the shelter about an hour later. Beth’s kids immediately wanted to ride on his cart, and Linus was all too happy to oblige them.

We’d picked up another half-dozen folks along the way, and as soon as they were all situated, Sheriff Jackson came up to me and the reverend and said, “Grant McCullers just called from the Hangman. He’s bringing some hot food over for everyone, and it appears that he’s got another guest for you tonight.”

“Who?” asked the Reverend.

Jackson shrugged. “He wouldn’t say. I guess he found the guy camping out between a couple of the lumber piles.”

McCullers owns and operates the Hangman’s Tavern, a place out by Buckeye Lake. It’s called that because the KKK, back in the day, used to hang black folks near the spot. There’s even an old makeshift “T” post with a noose dangling from it to mark the road to the tavern.

Grant’s a good guy. We hadn’t heard much from him since October, when a nasty storm did some serious damage to the Hangman. I hated to think what the repairs were costing him, but even with all his own financial troubles, Grant somehow always managed to come to the shelter a couple times every month to bring some hot food. He’d even offered to donate whatever lumber was left from the repair work so that we could do something about the wall in the basement.